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Hangman Adam Page with Kevin Ryan

This week, Mandy dives into one of the most intimidating corners of nerd culture she’s ever faced: professional wrestling. Yes. Wrestling. AEW wrestling. The one with the hair flips, the pyrotechnics, the questionable fashion choices, the crowd chanting things you can’t say in front of your kids… that wrestling.

And she didn’t do it alone. Mandy is joined by Kevin Ryan, creator and host of the improv-comedy podcast Tyrant in Training, a show in which guests build and rule their own fictional country while Kevin shape-shifts into various advisors, bureaucrats, and chaos agents. (Mandy herself recently appeared as a Supermodel-Tyrant, which feels exactly correct.)

Kevin may live all the way in Ireland, but he arrives ready to induct Mandy into the lore-heavy, storyline-infested, deeply theatrical, occasionally violent world of AEW. He explains babyfaces and heels (good guys and bad guys, but with more spandex), demystifies why everyone has long hair (physics!), and unpacks the epic ongoing saga of Hangman Adam Page — the anxious, whiskey-swirling cowboy who somehow embodies the millennial hero’s journey.

Mandy, meanwhile, wrestles (pun intended) with a set of entirely reasonable questions:

• Why is everyone bleeding?

• Why does the “good guy” burn down someone’s childhood home?

• Why does the ref seem like a frantic unpaid intern who’s given up on life?

• And why on earth does everyone look like they’re auditioning for a shampoo commercial?

Not everything lands for Mandy — including one infamous Dark Order Christmas video that contains acting choices best described as “porn-adjacent.” But the surprising part? Mandy begins to understand the nerd appeal of wrestling: the world-building, the lore, the serialized storytelling, the soap-opera energy with a side of pyrotechnics. It turns out AEW is basically Days of Our Lives if everyone was constantly flipping off turnbuckles and crying in stylish leather boots.

Kevin brings the jokes, the enthusiasm, and the blanket — literally, the man owns a blanket featuring Hangman Page sitting calmly in front of a burning house. Mandy brings the questions, the honesty, and the allergy to sweat. Together, they bridge two nations through the universal language of niche fandom.

Make Me a Nerd:

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A mom. A geek. A crash course in nerd culture. Make Me a Nerd throws host Mandy Kaplan into sci-fi, D&D, and beyond—one enthusiastic guest at a time.